This invention relates to furniture units which may be assembled from individual panels in interlocking relationships and, more particularly, to furniture assemblies using one panel moved to a final position to lock other panels in place.
Certain prior furniture constructions, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,451,362 and 3,634,983, both of which are commonly assigned to the owner of the present application, have utilized recessed fasteners to interlock various panels together into a furniture unit. Typically, such units include a back panel, a pair of vertical side panels and a desired number of horizontal shelves. Such units may be used as public phone booths or the like. In these constructions, certain of the recesses in which fasteners were located included openings to other surfaces allowing portions of the fasteners to be inserted therethrough during the assembly procedure. Others of the constructions utilized no such openings but required flexing and bending of certain of the panels during the assembly procedure. This latter type of construction guarded against vandalism and disassembly especially for structures used in public places.
A third type of construction using interlocking panels with recessed fasteners is shown in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 825,206, filed Aug. 17, 1977, entitled FURNITURE UNITS WITH CONCEALED FASTENERS AND METHOD THEREFOR, invented by Montgomery J. Welch, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,178,047. This latter type of construction includes completely concealed fasteners after assembly and includes no openings to the fasteners which are visible after assembly. Because of the elimination of access openings to the fastener recesses, the methods and sequence of assembly of the panels in this type of construction are very precise. Although several assemblies in this type of construction utilize panels moved into place to prevent the removal of other panels, the prior structures did not provide for insertion and support of intermediate or smaller panels on panel fasteners locked in place when another panel inserted by means of access openings facilitating assembly and disassembly was moved on its own fasteners.
Therefore, a need became apparent for an ability to strengthen the assembly units and support other panels such as dividers or shelves therein, especially intermediate other panels. The present invention provides an improved furniture assembly as a solution for this need.